Tension rises between Paul Maurice and Mike Yeo

Paul Maurice didn’t hide his frustration on Sunday night following the Jets’ 8-1 pre-season loss to the Minnesota Wild.

Only, for the most part, he wasn’t angry with his own players. It was directed toward Wild head coach Mike Yeo, who iced all his veterans — even up by seven goals late in the game — during the lopsided victory.

“You never get an option in this league,” Maurice told the Winnipeg Sun during his post-game interview. “You get into those games and you know, they’re going to keep putting out good players, like when they’ve got an 8-1 lead and they’ve got a power play, the best is coming out. In an exhibition game.”

Wild stars Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Matt Dumba, Jason Pominville and Mikael Granlund all had over four minutes of power-play ice time, while the Jets went with a youthful roster with the likes of Nic Petan, Nikolaj Ehlers and Josh Morrissey.

After hearing about Maurice’s displeasure, Yeo had an issue of his own — Anthony Peluso. The Jets enforcer had 9:55 of ice time but was on the ice late in the game mixing it up with Wild forward Thomas Vanek.

“Well, I was pretty upset that (Anthony) Peluso was running around,” Yeo added.

This may be the start of another intense rivalry between the Central Division foes. Either way, circle Oct. 25 on your calendar for the first of five regular-season match-ups between the two clubs.

Meanwhile, the Jets will continue their pre-season schedule on Tuesday night when they host the Ottawa Senators at the MTS Centre.